September 28, 2017 Meeting of User Services Advisory Committee (USAC)

Agenda not yet available.

Cherie Weible (Chair), Sarah Christensen, Beth Sheehan, Becky Smith, Jason Strutz, David Ward, Robin Woodall (minutes)

1.        Office of User Services Staff Update /UX Librarian (Cherié)

• Interview for faculty retention – filled User services librarian and web content – combined both.
  • Hired John Laskowski he will report to Cherie Weible and Tom Habing.
  • John starts Nov 1 in 450 suites.

2.       Photo Contest update, Human library and student ambassadors (Sarah)

• Sarah is waiting to hear back from Robert about the photo contest.
• Human Lib went really well – 10 books – some new, some returning.  Perhaps a smaller turnout than last year.
  • How will previous books be stored?
  • Books were recruited by word of mouth.
  • Suggest that perhaps cross Pecha Kucha – cross promotion possibility.
• Student ambassadors – undergrad students advocating for library – 5 applicants – great applicants library advocates for quad day.
  • Advancement is interested in ways to have student ambassadors be a part of advancement
    • have users talk about how the library is important to them.
    • § Advancement would pay for some of the ambassador costs.
    • § Talk to their peers to find communication gaps.
  • They will start their own programs this summer.
  • Want them to form sub committees and form leadership opportunities.
  • David Ward talked to Ellen Swain about marketing items for possible library gift store- use the ambassadors to evaluate product ideas.

3.       Printing review, lessons learned, future directions

• Printing – poor service after changes on weekend.  Student charges to iCard didn’t work well after roll out.  Caused confusion. – Good thing went through now – OBFS will require the change in January 1. Fixes and changes were made. Will use in a test environment before push to live.
• Screen shots Megean put together are helpful for users.
• Had trouble getting an accurate picture of student experience.  Will be switching soon from PaperCut 16 to PaperCut17.   Will have to take secondary printer up to 17.
• Looking how to handle anonymous printing because expanding cash card printing.  Suggested that Cherie, and reps from Grainger and UGL to talk about the cash card printing.   Cost is currently 10 cents black and white and 40 cents for color.

4.       Calendar/room reservation systems

• Room Res – issue – use Dibs now – after Mestre retires need someone to take over. No further development will have updates for October meeting.

5.       Service continuity website (similar to emergency.publicaffiairs.illinois.edu) (Jason)

• Emergency website – pulling in safety updates from RSS feed purpose if illinois.edu site offline, it could come up.
• Also useful w/ an active shooter – Can see receive current information.
• If other sites crash, this can handle 100,000s of hits per second  w/ power outages, etc.
• Can list links to emergency number and emergency response information in one location.
• How did this come about? – Table top exercise in Jan – preservation GA put together – hypothetical massive earthquake disaster situation – how would be deal w/ emergency – how would we keep the website working – what would go down in a catastrophe.   Up and running to communicate w / people.

6.       International Students Library Research Fair (Joe)

• ISSS research orientations were good – looking to build relationships- focus on doc and grad students their general  stay is 2 – 10 years – good to build relationships
• Getting together in fall/spring orientation to get to know services – chance to start to connect and build relationships. –
• They are eager to meet subject specialists.
  • Which SS? – based on incoming traffic data.  General lib services to be represented as well.
  • Room 200.  Spring semester – end of January.
  • In addition, 30 minutes they can meet up outside of the fair.

Other:

Reflection rooms –

• UGL started 1 ½ years ago – places to de-stress.
• Campus is looking to have more of these around campus – meditation and prayer.
• Reflection room name to have continuity around campus.
• Rooms need to have privacy but be able to see inside partially for safety.
• Rooms may be reserved or walk in.

Dogs – event for finals week VC – student affairs Week of Oct 9 – 12 doing a series of events and going to bring in a dog team that week to UGL.